THE NATIONAL SCAPE-GOAT ASSOCIATION.
My companion had come into the compartment hurriedly just as the train started. He was a small, middle-aged, sandy-haired man with a straggling tufted beard, the sort of beard that looks as if it owed its origin rather to forgetfulness than to any settled design. The expression on his face and, indeed, over his whole body was a deprecating one. He reminded me of a dog who has transgressed and begs humbly for forgiveness. He had no newspaper, and accepted the offer of one of mine with a deference of gratitude that struck me as excessive. Soon after that we slid into a conversation about the War and made most of the usual remarks.
"It's wonderful," he said, "how the country maintains its financial stability. Five millions a day, you know. It's a pretty big sum, and yet nobody seems to feel it. Here we are, for instance, you and I, travelling first-class."
"My next season-ticket is going to be third-class," I said. "All business has been hit very hard, and we've simply got to economise."
"I daresay, I daresay," he said. "It may be so with some businesses. All I know is my business hasn't gone off."
"Shipowner?" I said.
He gasped and shook his head emphatically. "Oh dear, no," he said. "Nothing of that kind—wish I was. But you won't guess what I do, not if I were to let you have a thousand guesses." His humility had vanished and he looked almost triumphant.
"I give it up at once," I said. "What are you?"
"I," he said, "am the National Scape-Goat Association."
"The what?" I said.
He repeated his words. "I see you don't understand," he went on, "so perhaps I'd better explain."
"Yes," I said, "much better."
"Well, it's this way," he said. "Have you ever written a book or been a Candidate for a seat in the House of Commons?"
I said I hadn't.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "You'll understand what I mean. Take the politician first. He issues an Address and makes speeches; in fact, does things which make him known to thousands of people whom he doesn't know. Do you follow me?"
I said I did.
"Well, then, somebody posts back his Election Address with 'This is pitiful balderdash and most ungrammatical' written plainly at the bottom of it. What would be your feelings if you got a thing like that?"
"I shouldn't like it," I said.
"Of course you wouldn't. You'd want to kick the writer, or at the very least you'd want to write back to him and tell him what you thought of him. But you can't do it, because of course he hasn't signed his name or given any hint of his address. It's the same way with anonymous letters of abuse. You can't answer them. So you 're done. You feel as if you'd tried to walk up a step where there wasn't a step, and your temper suffers. That's where the Association comes in. All you've got to do is to write to us, enclosing fee. For half-a-guinea we send down to any address in England one of our experts from the Assault-and-Battery Department, and you're entitled to kick him once—we guarantee him boot-proof, so you can kick as hard as you like. Or, if you prefer writing to kicking, you can write to me as if I'd written the anonymous letter or article or whatever it may be, and you can abuse me to your heart's content for half-a-crown. For three shillings you can call me a pro-German. Anyhow, the result is that your temper recovers and you feel perfectly satisfied. It's well worth the money, isn't it? I'm thinking of starting a Subscriptions' Department, to which you could write a refusal of any application for money, even if you have to subscribe in the end. It will give a man a pleasant glow to write to a clergyman, for instance (I shall keep a dozen or so on the premises), and say he'll be immortally jiggered if he'll subscribe to the Church Building Fund. But the anonymous letter business will always be my chief source of profit. Here's our prospectus, with all details. If you think any more of it perhaps you'll let me know. I get out here. Good-bye."
Kaiser (reading English news of wood-pulp restrictions). "Himmel! They'll think more than ever of their precious 'scraps of paper'!"
Kipling Revised.
"Men of all castes had rallied to the Flag, and truly we had witnessed the truth of what the poet told us. 'The East is West and the West is East.'" Surrey Mirror.
"Alfred Billinger and Albert Robson, miners ... were fined 20s. each for trespassing in search of fame." Provincial Paper.
Well, now they've got it.
"In the Metropolitan Police District the employment of special constables has resulted in a saving of five-eighths of a penny."—Yorkshire Evening Post.
Very disappointing! Not even a whole copper.
From the report of a Dairyman's Association:—
"It further aims at insuring that the milk-supply for the city and district shall, like Cæsar's wife, be beyond suspicion, and it therefore enjoins on its members the necessity for taking every possible care that the sanitary conditions prevailing at the farms, in the dairies and during the transit of the milk to the public shall leave nothing to be desired. In short, its motto is, in these respects, 'Nilus secundus.'"—Hampshire Chronicle.
If they must use water in their milk we are glad to think that the Nile is only their second choice.
"The Sunday schools must try to 'wangle'—that was, a project their in-to 'wangle'—that was, to project their in-enlarged task, and attempt to do what seemed impossible."—Provincial Paper.
We would not go so far as to say impossible, but they certainly seem to have difficulties ahead.
"Good fish, fruit, and rabbit business for sale. No opposition fish or rabbits."—Bolton Journal.
It looks rather as if the fruit might disagree with you.
Under the heading, "Musical Instruments, etc.":—
"American mammoth bronze turkey cockerels, strong, healthy, grand stock birds; 20s. each."—Glasgow Herald.
You should hear these musical instruments throw off "Yankee-doodle."
Servant. "I can't get this 'ere tail light to burn, Sir."
Country Doctor. "Oh, never mind. We're only going home, and I've got the constable safe in bed with lumbago."